The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Nigerian Newspapers

  • NINI IYIZOBA

    Nini Iyizoba is a woman of many parts. She is a writer, entrepreneur and medical doctor who created and produced a wellness talk show. In this interview with Yetunde Oladeinde, she talks about her passion for fertility issues, coping with stigma, her personal struggles and how this motivated her to embark on a fertility advocacy journey to help other women.

    TELL us about your fertility health advocacy journey. What inspired you to embark on this?

    You never really understand something until you experience it yourself. Having my own fair share of challenges and difficulties, I know firsthand the stigma, the struggle, the hurt and the disappointment that millions of people silently go through. I felt like this experience was there to help teach me something and to help me grow. So, I wanted to turn all that around into something positive and help people facing the same challenges, and from there the fertility health advocacy began. Dr. Nini Women’s Health Awareness Foundation was created out of love and a love for other women just like me that struggle with infertility in life.

    Our aim is to first end the stigma surrounding infertility. We need people to understand that infertility is very common; it is a medical condition just like any other such as high blood pressure. And women and men must understand that the fact that you have been diagnosed with infertility does not mean that is the end of the world. No! It is not a death sentence. In-fact more people need to speak out about it because when there is more awareness, there is more education, and when there is more education, people are more accepting.

    We aim to increase awareness on infertility, educate people on infertility and ways to overcome them, to promote fertility health. We believe that people can be educated on how certain habits affect their health and teach them how to start early to achieve optimal fertility health. We also provide resources to help and support those dealing with infertility in whatever measure that we can provide. There are several treatment options available, whether InVitro Fertilisation, IntraUterine Insemination, Egg freezing, Ovulation Induction, and most times, most people are not aware of these or they are too ashamed to even speak about. It’s time to end that backward mentality! This is the 21st century and we need to evolve with the times. We need to be thankfu l for advancements in technology and use it to the fullness of our advantage. Also, we increase awareness and educate women about life-threatening reproductive health conditions and advocate for sexual health and reproductive health.

    What are some of the things you have done on this journey?

    Our launch event held in 2015 termed the ‘Kick Off Endometriosis’ event was aimed at creating more awareness about a rising cause of infertility known as endometriosis. Endometriosis affects more people than breast cancer but very little is known about it. It usually starts out in young teenagers and usually goes unnoticed till the women reach childbearing age. I felt the need to speak up about endometriosis so that more people would recognise the symptoms, especially young ladies, and to get help before it gets too bad. In 2016, we had another event ‘Positive Vibes Only’ discussing mental health and infertility and mainly aimed at the importance of having a positive mindset during the infertility struggle and we provided resources for women who may be dealing with anxiety and major depressive disorder. People suffering from infertility know that it takes a toll on one’s mental psyche. It’s an emotional rollercoaster and most people suffer severe depression and feelings of worthlessness during this time. I felt the need to emphasise the importance of good mental health in dealing with these issues and overcoming them.

    In 2017, we held the ‘Keep the Passion Alive’ event for couples dealing with this. In addition, we have had various educational programmes aimed at educating young women in the universities about sexual health behaviours and how it may affect fertility. We have also partnered with a few fertility clinics to provide free health screenings and certain treatments for women.

    We recently launched the Fertyl Life By Dr Nini networks which are just a group of women who are united because they share something in common and provide support for each other by sharing their experiences and success stories. We are also launching the Fertyl Apparel, which are just fertility and infertility awareness gifts such as T-shirts, mugs, hats, socks, pillowcases and greeting cards etc, that are inspirational, funny and give hope to those dealing with this. Proceeds from the sales of these items would be applied towards more women’s health awareness programmes.

    Let’s talk about life as a medical doctor

    Life as a medical doctor is interesting, especially in Nigeria. It exposes you to a wide range of people and you quickly develop people skills. In general, as a medical doctor, you are constantly learning because you are almost always surrounded by intellectuals and you always have to try to keep up with latest trends because medicine is always advancing. Sometimes, it’s really stressful but there is a certain sense of fulfilment that you get from positively impacting a patient’s life. My life as a medical doctor here in Nigeria is different from what it would have been if I were still living in the United States. In Nigeria, I have been able to dabble into so many other things. I am an entrepreneur, a restaurateur, a businesswoman, a writer, a speaker, a health and wellness advocate and coach. I have a health and wellness talk show that I created and produced, I run a women’s health foundation and then, I am still a medical doctor. So, yeah, it is a very interesting life.

    What are some challenges you have encountered?

    Things work very differently here in Nigeria. People are not very knowledgeable about diseases and risk reduction. The attitude towards healthcare and preventive medicine is very lackadaisical. It’s also a challenge to put in your best to work especially when most of your colleagues are not encouraged or motivated to work due to lack of resources. You find that you cannot just be a doctor alone in Nigeria. You have to find a side hustle because a lot of doctors are not well paid. And it’s a shame really, because we have such smart, educated, brilliant doctors but they are leaving the country because they are not compensated well enough for their services. This is something that needs to change, hopefully soon, and hopefully for the better.

    What about some memorable moments working with women?

    I would have to say the launch of the Dr Nini Women’s Health Awareness Foundation was one of my most memorable moments. It takes guts and a lot of courage to have a foundation or to support a cause that deals a lot with fertility health and infertility awareness. It’s almost a taboo to speak about it, but part of our aim is to address the stigma and to know that there are several treatment options so every encounter with men and women regarding this is always one that I cherish wholeheartedly. I am proud of myself for neglecting the comments and taking that plunge. People still talk but I can’t hear them!

    What are some of the achievements in the sector?

    Getting more people to be open and honest about their fertility journey, especially in a country like ours where everyone is so hush-hush about these things. It’s time to end the stigma and start a conversation about ways to overcome it because truly it is not a death sentence and there are treatments available; and getting more and more people to realise that gives me satisfaction. It’s still slow, but still a step in the right direction.

    What are you looking forward to in the next few years?

    I’m looking forward to opening a free fertility clinic for women one day in the future. So help me God.

    Who or what do you consider as the greatest influence in your life and career?

    Though it may seem unorthodox, I would have to say my husband has been and continues to be a great influence. There’s nothing like having someone who truly supports you and encourages you in everything you want to do. It allows you to be adventurous and discover potentially satisfying career options. And he is such a hardworking man that he motivates me and pushes me to even do more.

    Let’s compare when you started and now, what has changed?

    When I first moved back, all I wanted to do was find a hospital or clinic that I could practice my medicine. I used to think that the only place that I could be a doctor was if I was going to the hospital every single day. Thank God I think differently now. I tell myself you are a medical doctor in every situation you find yourself; you have the knowledge and you have the skill so I can use it anyhow I want to, whether in TV, in the newspapers, on social media. My aim is to promote health and influence people to live healthier. Don’t get me wrong, I truly respect everyone that puts in the work in the hospitals every day; they are the real MVPs. However, sometimes you have to follow the path that life has pointed out and create what works best for you. For now, I knew I wasn’t going to be happy doing that every single day, maybe in the future. Now I’ve been able to spread my wings and explore the practice of medicine beyond the clinic and it has opened up different opportunities that I never thought possible.

    What are some of the changes that you would like to see in the country, regarding your profession?

    Well, I would say our healthcare system still needs a lot of work. Not too long ago, there was a story of a patient receiving medical care in the parking lot of a teaching hospital because there were no available beds in the hospital. Stories like this make me cringe! For starters, the government should make more health centres available and employ well skilled staff and doctors in these health centres. In addition, health services should be more affordable for the low income earners in our country. Our hospitals need well-trained and motivated staff in order to provide proper care to patients. How do you motivate them? Well, one way is to pay them well and provide equipment that makes the job easier.

    What lessons has life taught you?

    Life has taught me that things won’t always happen the way you plan for it to happen. As much as you want to plan your life, it has a way of surprising you with unexpected things. There would always be challenges and curve balls thrown at you but you have to just trust the process and know that God’s plan is the best so I just align myself with Him.

    What are some of the things that you treasure most in life?

    Family; I don’t know what I’d do without my family. They are a great support system in all aspects of my life.

    What are some of the principles that you hold on to?

    Positive vibes only! I believe that one should approach everyday with a positive outlook. I believe in transmitting positive energy and thoughts into the universe, it would eventually become your reality. When things don’t go as planned, I say ‘Oh well… there’s something better coming my way’. It’s not a coping mechanism. It’s my way of life.

    Shall we talk about the people you admire and role models?

    I admire every woman that is out there excelling at being a successful career woman even while juggling a hectic family life, and balancing it all. It’s not easy but they somehow pull it all together; I admire them. On days when I can’t do it no more, they inspire me, whether they know it or not.

    If you had to advise Nigerian women, what would you tell them?

    There is nothing wrong with saying No! Sometimes we are so busy taking care of everyone else that we forget to take care of ourselves. Women… we all have to learn that we matter as well! It is not selfish to put yourself first. Take some time out to take care of yourself, visit your doctor, and find ways to relax. All these would make you healthier, happier and even more productive.

  • Detention while awaiting trial? – Freedom for Sowore and the tens of thousands detained in Nigerian prisons illegally

    I am writing this piece on Friday, September 27, 2019. It will appear in print and online on Sunday, September 29. There is a very slim chance that by that date, the government of President Buhari would have obeyed the order of an Abuja High Court granting bail to Omoyele Sowore while standing trial for, among other alleged offences, treasonable felony. Given the current administration’s poor record of obeying court orders pertaining to release on bail of its many “enemies”, this is highly unlikely. But it may happen. If it does, some of the things I shall be saying in this piece would have been overtaken by events. If, however, Sowore is still in forcible and illegal detention by the time that this piece is read in print and online, then much of my observations in the essay will, sadly, be validated by yet another act of deliberate and unwarranted rubbishing of the rule of law by the government.

    In this piece, I am joining my voice to the voices of people in Nigeria and abroad that have called for Sowore’s his immediate release. Furthermore, I call for all charges against him to be dropped by the government because his call for massive and prolonged demonstrations is protected by the Nigerian Constitution. Moreover, I declare that the call of Sowore and the organization known as #RevolutionNow for protests constitute an act of civil disobedience that not only is a valid and honorable part of the political history of this country but also a tradition that President Buhari himself has deployed in pursuit of both his political ambitions and his vision for the country’s development and progress. But if it is the case that the government will not drop the charges Sowore, I join others in demanding that he should be freed now and be given a manifestly fair and credible trial. Free Sowore now! His continued detention is unjust, unlawful and profoundly anti-democratic.

    Since both the detention of Sowore itself and the alleged offences for the detention have been widely reported – and protested – in Nigeria and abroad, it is useful for me to begin here with the things that I find particularly noteworthy in the still unfolding saga. For this, I ask the reader to please take note of the first part of the title of this piece: detention while awaiting trial. As I shall demonstrate in the course of my reflections in this piece, Sowore is only one of tens of thousands of Nigerians languishing in prison, in detention, while awaiting trial. Among all the profoundly unconstitutional and anti-democratic aspects of governance in our country, this is one of the worst. Thus, Omoyele Sowore’s case is only the currently most talked about and scandalous instance of this extremely anti-democratic pattern or, indeed, tradition. Permit me to make a short elaboration on this particular case before coming to the more general aspects, especially as this has been manifested in the past and present political career of President Buhari.

    Sowore has been in detention since early August. As a matter of fact, after his arrest, the order for his detention was granted by a court for 45 days while investigation of his alleged offences was being conducted, with the proviso that if the investigation was not yet concluded in 45 days, the government prosecutors in the case could ask for extension of the detention. But this week – about the 6th or the 7th week of Sowore’s detention – the prosecutors announced that all investigations into the alleged offenses had been concluded. Moreover, the prosecutors did not ask for Sowore’s detention to be extended – presumably because they have no legal basis to do so. Instead of this, they are saying something more chilling, more sinister, this being the declaration that some of the alleged offenses for which Sowore is being charged are capital offenses that carry the death penalty, an assertion that Sowore’s lawyers have stoutly contested. The implication of this is as clear as daylight: in the absence of any valid legal basis for the continuation of Sowore’s detention, any excuse, any concocted rationale must be found to perpetuate this Nigerian tradition of detention while awaiting trial that the current administration has taken to hitherto unprecedented levels.

    I must quickly correct the last sentence. There is nothing uniquely “Nigerian” about detention while awaiting trial. In many other countries, we do find the phenomenon of so massive an over-congestion of criminal cases in the courts that the judicial system has to either release accused persons before they can be tried or keep them detained for as long as it takes for their cases to be tried and brought to a conclusion. The peculiar “Nigerian” dimension of this phenomenon lies in two remarkable factors. These are, respectively, the sheer scale of the phenomenon in terms of the total population of Nigerian prisons and the effect that long stretches of autocratic military rule has had on human and constitutional rights violations in our judicial order under both military and elective governance. What does this mean in concrete terms?

    Well, with regard to the first factor, consider the estimate made by some scholars and experts that have studied the issue that sometimes, between 63 to 70% of the population of Nigerian prisons are persons awaiting trial, some of them spending months and years in excess of the stipulated penalties for the crimes for which they were charged! And with regard to the second factor, the refusal of government to obey explicit court orders granting bail for persons awaiting trial, such as we have it in the current case of Sowore, began with military autocracy. Indeed, the two greatest exemplars of tradition of disobeying court orders by elected Nigerian heads of state, Obasanjo and Buhari, had their “training” for this propensity during their tenures as military dictators. As a matter of fact, the single most pernicious military decree on this phenomenon – the dreaded Decree No 2 of 1984 – was promulgated by Buhari as military ruler. Infamously, the decree called for indefinite detention for any acts intended to cause embarrassment or disrepute to the government, regardless of whether the allegations are true or false!

    Wole Soyinka has stated, perceptively and clamantly, that the government’s kneejerk response to Sowore’s call for massive protests is indicative of the increasing paranoia of the Buhari administration. As if to give proof to this declaration of Soyinka, one of the alleged offenses for which Sowore is to be charged is insulting the President and seeking to foment disrespect and hatred of Buhari: echoes of Decree No 2 of 1984! There is a big unintended irony here because, as I stated at the beginning of this piece, Buhari as both a military person and a civilian citizen has been an avid, passionate user of the tactics and strategy of civil disobedience in pursuit of his ambitions and goals. As a matter of fact, of all the 13 executive heads of state we have had in Nigeria since independence in 1960, none has been more of a practitioner of civil (and uncivil) disobedience than Mohammadu Buhari! Permit me to briefly provide a fact-based illustration of this declaration.

    Fact: Of all the military coups carried out by executive heads of state in this county, only Buhari’s coup of December 1983 against the government of the late Shehu Shagari was against an elected government. All the other coups by executive heads of state were “soldier come; soldier go” coups against other military autocracies. The coup led by Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu was also against an elected civilian government, but as it only partially succeeded and neither Nzeogwu nor any of his fellow coup-makers became head of state, this is different from Buhari’s successful coup against Shagari. I neither condemn nor endorse Buhari’s coup against Shagari’s government. I am merely drawing attention to its uniqueness among all other military coups in Nigeria because of the element of paranoia that has been such a prominent feature of the rule of the President as both a military and civilian head of state.

    Fact: In 2015, close to the presidential elections of that year that he eventually won, Buhari made his infamous statement of militant, chiliastic civil disobedience in which he stated, inter alia, that the “dog and the baboon will be soaked in blood”. Even the diehard defenders of the President have found it difficult to explain and/or justify the taint of bloodshed as means or ends of resistance to rigging in that statement. But that is Buhari for you, at least before he acceded to rulership for the second time: forget the courts, forget election tribunals, forget appeals to the international community; there will be blood, there will be fire if the elections are rigged. Looking back now to the declaration and its context in 2015, I remember that nobody took this declaration by Buhari as an empty threat, least of all the government of Ex-President Goodluck Jonathan and his political party, the PDP. I think Jonathan was shaken by the declaration and shocked into inaction about it primarily because he thought that he could not be sure of the readiness of the security forces of the state under his control to overwhelm or even match the bloodiness promised in “the dog and the baboon will be soaked in blood” speech. For his part, Buhari, I think, sees every potential challenge to his rule in the shadow of that speech, especially if he deems such challenges or threats as potentially or actually popular.

    Think about this, compatriots. Sowore and #RevolutionNow, together with their supporters, are numbered in dozens and at most hundreds, not thousands and definitely not millions. But they could grow into millions and multiple of millions, given the state of affairs in the country, especially with the overwhelming majority of our peoples. This is the cause of the fear and the paranoia behind the government’s decision to keep Sowore locked up and deprived of his freedom – while he is awaiting trial. Incidentally, the great majority of those detained in Nigeria’s prisons while awaiting trial are poor and powerless Nigerians, the very class of people on behalf of whom Sowore and #RevolutionNow are struggling. This is the reason why in this piece I have linked the call for Sowore’s release from detention to the call also for the release of all persons in Nigerian jails awaiting trial in the law courts.

    Any Nigerian who is not rich, not influential and is without connections to those in power is a potential member of the hundreds of thousands of those in prison while awaiting trial. All it will take to join the ranks of these damned and wretched of the land is for a person to be arrested on a fateful day, rightfully or wrongfully, for a criminal offense. The elite, the educated, the famous and influential can also be forcibly thrown in this throng. All that is needed is for you, like Sowore, to insist that you and others will march and protest and demonstrate against the injustices in the land without asking or waiting for the permission of the state to do so in a tradition of moral and altruistic citizenship known all over the world as – civil disobedience. The continued detention of Sowore is intended to discourage, indeed to criminalize civil disobedience by making Sowore a warning to others who may inspired by him and the acts of #RevolutionNow. I do not think that in the long run the government will succeed in this calculation. But that is an issue that only time and history will tell. Right now, we must insist that Sowore must be freed immediately and be allowed to face his trial not as a detained prisoner.

    In the late Festus Iyayi’s collection of short stories titled Awaiting Court Martial, we find many tales evoking and protesting the harrowing emotional, spiritual and ethical landscapes in which not only those literally awaiting trials are in limbo but the whole nation as well. Fear and paranoia are everywhere, among the people and definitely in the innermost recesses of the government. In one story titled “When they came for Akika Lamidi”, the journalist for whom the security police have come in the middle of the night thinks at first that it is armed robbers knocking on his door and trying to beak it down. He soon finds that it is the secret police. And then he discovers that they are like armed robbers in their mercilessness, only a hundred times worse. They have come now for Sowore. They will not come for you but that is only if you give up your rights and obligations as a human being and a citizen.

    • Biodun Jeyifo         bjeyifo@fas.harvard.edu         

  • The World Economy Part 3: What a strange edifice

    This week, we hope to finish our brief analysis of the global economy and to register some suggestions regarding its improvement. Because of the scope of our review, our remarks will be more generic than specific, more of general application than of precise application to any one particular circumstance. In other words, this will tend to be a statement of general principles that can be applied in varying degrees to every nation, including the one we inhabit.

    First, I must admit a mistake. I have continually written of the world economy as if the financial sector and what we shall deem the real economy are parts of the same whole. (Here the real economy refers to what most people do, either through the production of actual tangible goods or the provision of services related to tangible goods.)  In so doing, I committed the error of overly indulging the orthodox view of things. At some earlier point in the world’s economic evolution, this description might have been apt. That was years ago.

    The very nature of a world at work is a world in flux. That which you do changes the world. The subsequent performance of the same action may produce more or perhaps less of the outcome you desire by virtue of the fact that your initial action altered the world. This means your subsequent action will not have the same effect as your first. If a farmer continues to plant the same amount of seed on his plot of land, his yields will change because the prior cultivation has altered the composition of the soil beneath his feet.

    The global economy is a now a misnomer due primarily to the very dynamics of that global economy. Yesterday’s textbooks teach you the financial system is an auxiliary of the real economy. It is there to funnel needed funds and investments into the real economy. What may have been yesterday’s truth is today’s falsity.

    The financial sector is no longer a mere intermediary at the service of the real sector. The financial sector is a system unto itself. Indeed, it is connected to the real sector; the interaction between the two is meaningful and substantial. However the financial system no longer exists just to service the needs of the real sector. The financial sector’s main preoccupation is its own expansion. It has grown to become an independent and significantly different system than the real sector. It has its own rules, dynamics and rationales that have little to with and almost nothing in common with the real economy. It is as if two communities once bound by blood and a common tongue, came to speak distinguishable dialects and then a different language entirely, due to the passage of time and the divergence of their experiences.  Possessed now of substantially different cultural underpinnings, the two settlements no longer saw themselves as brothers. The stronger town eventually overran the lesser.

    For those of you more inclined to the physical sciences, imagine a normal                                     automobile with four wheels moving in unison in the same direction. A metamorphosis takes place. Two of the wheels grow larger and begin to spin in the opposite direction of the other two wheels. A certain friction and drag will occur as one set of wheels fights the other to determine the direction the vehicle will take. All other things being equal, the stronger wheels will win the contest. However, much energy will be expended and wasted in this struggle. Worst, there is no assurance that the new direction taken will be as sound as the direction previously established.

    Such is the way with the financial sector and the real economy. One is a muscular Money Power that dictates the disposition of an increasing number of important things in society. The other is comprised of the diminished power of physical capital, i.e. the means of production of actual goods, and, to a higher degree, of organized labor. Both now physical capital and labor are now relegated to fighting and losing battles against the grinding onslaught of Money Power.

    Our world is oddly and unfairly structured. The fiat money system described in the prior installments of this series of articles could have provided an enlightened and fair world the fiscal latitude needed to employ labor and resources as never before. A more widely-shared prosperity and less poverty could be had. Instead, a greed-fueled world has distorted the fiat money system from a key to greater balance and equity into a mean winepress that most must trod or be crushed.

    For the past twenty years, most of the new income generated globally has disproportionately gone to the financial houses and allied big corporations. The world over, the wages of common folk have stagnated or fallen back. Trillions of dollars governments have provided banks to cure them of their speculative excesses; but not a dime extra for the meek and modest. Some nations have taken bread from the mouths of the poor in order to revive the balance sheets of financial houses that squandered their wealth on tarty deals and reckless undertakings all because the only scent they detected was that of obscene profit.

    If you are of middling or modest means and you live in a nation where you were fortunately enough to procure a loan, you could maintain your lifestyle at the price of surrendering yourself to the fate of debt peonage. For the sake of owning a car, refrigerator on credit, you would be forced to repay so much more than you borrowed; it would be small miracle if you could repay your debts at all. If you lived in a nation where you could not even obtain a loan because the interest rates were too usurious or because banks would not give your puny wants any attention, then you skidded past the transitory phase of debt peonage straight into the grip of a poverty beckoning, come one, come all.

    It is said the road to hell is paved with good intentions. As with all convention wisdom, I doubt that this true as God punishes not the good in heart. However I am sure the road to poverty is paved with the bodies of the poor for the gods of that path are Greed and Money. Such deities do not traffic in kindness or mercy. They divide the world and apportion favor and punishment along the boundaries that separate the haves from the haves not.

    The conflicted financial and economic situation we confront is now best described as a farce of four players.

    First, the financial sector is so flush with money that speculative excess is encouraged. In turn, the reckless gambling on financial assets causes the initial money surfeit to evaporate. The higher the price of financial assets, the greater the speculative temptation. The more money gained by some, the more money lost by others. Financial crash inexorably follows its own boom. Despite all of these ups and downs, funds that enter into the financial sector, rarely leave it. The money bounces from one financial house to another. This is because of the depth and diversity of the modern forms of financial trading.

    The financial sector tends to attract more money than it needs due to the higher profits it offers. But the surplus funds are always dissipated by irrational behavior and risky investment that are no saner than gambling in the dark. Panic ensues and the sector then clamors for government subvention lest the demise of the great banks and financial houses leads to a collapse of society itself.

    This is where the second player, government, comes in. Government is supposed to be for the people; however, it generally seems more prone to revive a wastrel financial sector than to feed the poor. Consequently, central banks and monetary policy almost everywhere is active if not aggressive. This is because monetary policy is the great conduit of funds to the financial sector especially during periods of distress. Conversely, government is generally tepid regarding fiscal policy. This is because fiscal policy is the primary transmission of public funds to the working class and poor as well as to firms engaged in the manufacture of tangible goods. Government is more in the hands of big money than of the insignificant voter.

    Third, there is organized labor. This once potent and vital political force now only fits half the bill.  It is still needed but no longer strong. Organized labor is now synonymous with organized begging. Physical capital, the fourth player, once was master of the universe. The manufacturer was thought to be semi-divine.  Now the manufacturing sector seeks to keep pace with the profitability of the financial sector by mimicking the behavior of financial actors However, the more industrial firms act like financial players is the more they devote themselves to short-term profiteering instead of longer-term productivity. Firms come to behave more like incipient financial houses instead of expert makers of gadgets and widgets. They engage in more financial legerdemain than is good. They do so at the prospect of winnowing productive capacity and by sacrificing to unemployment the labor force they once hired.

    The central message of all of this is that there is a structural imbalance at the core of the global economic architecture. The financial sector is the undeserved beneficiary of a funding excess while the real economy, where most people earn their living, is starved of needed funds. In a broader sense, improvement and fairness rest in reducing the excesses of the financial sector. Meanwhile fiscal policy should be enhanced to invest more funds in the making of tangible goods and physical infrastructure that improve the daily conditions of the average person. This is akin to returning to our control that unruly automobile by weakening its rebellious wheels and strengthening its obedient ones.

    Regarding a better husbandry of the financial sector, nations should consider several steps. To keep the financial sector from overheating and to lessen its speculative profitability, a financial tax should be imposed on the incestuous trading of financial assets for another similar asset, particularly with regards to trade in derivatives such as the Collateralized Debt Obligations mentioned in previous articles. Also to lessen speculation and volatility, regulations should be enacted that impose a minimum time period a buyer must hold a financial asset prior to reselling it.  This will halt speculative quick sales and split-second arbitrage in the financial markets. Players would have to be more concerned with the actual long term soundness of a particular investment.

    Also, governments must be more demanding of the financial sector when asked to rescue firms from their own misfeasance. Government must place conditions on its assistance. Government must not be shy to put under receivership or outright nationalize firms that imperil a nation’s financial and economic wellbeing. The credible threat of nationalization will deter recklessness.

    Also, wherever there is a widespread financial crisis, rest assured there are widespread financial crimes. Offending executives of financial houses should not be allowed a free pass any more than a bank robber is given one. For the actions of the one man are akin to the misconduct of the other. Also, a government bailout of these firms should mean that top executives at least experience a significant reduction in compensation even when not guilty of any criminality. They should not receive full pay for job so terribly done that they require government rescue.

    Much more importantly, governments must rely heavily on fiscal policy to jumpstart the flagging real economy. First and foremost, government must shed itself of the fallacy of the need for a balanced or surplus budget. During the gold standard, this objective made sense. But the gold standard is extinct. Government chasing a balanced or surplus budget is no more intelligent than a modern hunter setting of on an expedition to bag a saber-tooth tiger. Whatever fun he may have along the way, he shall never achieve his primary objective.

    Under the fiat money regime, a national government has the unique, unlimited ability to create money. This is not an open door to license and spendthrift. Government must use this tool wisely. To create too much money or invest it on unproductive endeavors, will invite damaging inflation or worse. However, not to use this great facility to do good would be a tragic disservice to the people. Government should use this ability to build modern infrastructure that enhances growth and productivity and encourages private investment. Government can and should assure the poor the basics of life so that none live in abject poverty. Again, it must take these policy initiative with a watchful eye on inflation. Government can spend only to the extent that it does not substantially exceed society’s inflationary expectations.

    The fiat system also means government tax policy should change; a national government that creates its own money no longer needs tax revenues to fund its operations. Taxation should be used to discourage or encourage certain economic behavior or to redistribute income so that one segment of society does not become too powerful or rich and another too weak and poor. Taxation also could be used to subtract money from the private sector if we fear a private sector overheating. However, as a general rule, government should be careful with tax policy because of the general principle that taxes reduces private-sector holdings and wealth while our chief objective is to increase private-sector wealth.

    Governments also must mind the foreign loans they incur. Borrowing money in foreign currency may be necessary at times. It should only be done as a necessity because it abridges national sovereignty and beckons harmful inflation and currency devaluation in the long-run.

    I wanted to end this series with this article.  However, I think it might be beneficial to spend a bit more time on the fiscal implications of the fiat currency system. We shall continue in that vein next week. Hopefully, the message of this piece will stay with you until next week and beyond. The fiat system has been used heretofore to enlarge the financial sector at our expense. Now it is time to use that same system to benefit society at large while reducing the size, influence and threat of Money Power to the collective pursuit of our daily bread.

    0806034085 sms only

  • Nigeria’s governance: the presidency or the constitution? 1

    In 1999, citizens were not given an opportunity to show their views or assessments of the 1979 Constitution in relation to citizens’ sovereignty beyond the right to vote.

    Before I lose my readers, I would like to say that by presidency, I do not mean the unelected group that is generally referred to in the media as the presidency. I mean the two elected leaders—Buhari and Osinbajo—and their subnational counterparts—the so-called ‘executive governor’ and his deputy in the states. If you prefer, take my usage to mean the presidential system at the centre of the 1999 Constitution at the national and subnational levels.

    There is a Yoruba proverb: Amukun eru ori re wo, hmn oke lo n wo, oo wo isale, in English, an observer asks a semi-crippled person why the load on his head is not balanced and gets the reply of looking at the symptom, rather than the cause of a problem. This proverb seems to have a lot of relevance to the study of problems of governance in Nigeria. After four presidents since the end of military dictatorship in 1999, a journey through the country’s newspaper archives would reveal that each president including Umaru Yar’Adua who ruled (or reigned?) just for two years has been characterized by citizens and pundits to be incapable of solving the growing problems of the country. Is it conceivable that not all the presidents may be bad rulers but well-meaning individuals that choose to rule in an atmosphere toxic to the growth of democracy and development?

    After sixteen years of post-military rule, complaints about bad governance from citizens and pundits peaked to the point that Change became All Progressives Congress (APC) that brought Buhari to presidential power in 2015. And since he became president, complaints have not reduced about how little he, like those before him, has achieved, despite the sophistication with which the programmes he introduced have been reported and defended by his media men and other self-appointed praise singers of the president from the legislature, not only from his party but from opposition parties. For example, shortly after the election of the 9th Senate President, he pledged that he and the senate would not disappoint President Buhari, instead of worrying about disappointing Nigerians. What can be the explanation for having four presidents in a row that citizens in general are at ease to complain about and more or less for the same reason—lack of good governance and democracy?

    During the tenure of General Olusegun Obasanjo, the first president after the end of military dictatorship, a recurrent motif in the criticism of his rule was about a constitution that was not conducive to post-military rule. This was quickly replaced by a school of thought that propagated the belief that it was Obasanjo as an individual that was bad—unduly beholden to his military past and lacking the finesse of governing a truly free country. After him came Yar’Adua, whose failure was blamed on his poor health, at a time that most of the nation knew nothing about his approval of a contract with P&ID, a move that now threatens the economic health of the country. Criticism of Yar’Adua’s government later shifted to an invisible cabal blamed for ruling in Yar’Adua’s name, until the elevation of Goodluck Jonathan from vice president to president.

    Jonathan too was castigated for being too much of a-happy-go-lucky-fellow to have been wired to govern properly. And now, Buhari, a man believed to be coming to govern with the image of a messiah or angel, is believed by many not to be better than the people before him. Many of those who convinced voters about Buhari’s messianism are now complaining that they would rather not be ruled by a messiah-figure but by a regular mortal likely to feel the pains of suffering citizens. If after the nation-wide excitement of 2015, critics of governance at the centre and in the states cannot see their economic and political salvation in the style of Buhari, shouldn’t such critics, like the critic in the Yoruba proverb referenced at he beginning of this piece, wonder and worry why for 20 years after the departure of military dictators, Nigeria is still groping with the lock and searching for answers to its democracy and development?

    For a country to believe that 100% of its presidents and governors generally underperform, the reason may not be because all such persons are below average individuals, it may very well be that the tools with which they are asked to perform the herculean task placed before them by decades of military dictatorship are inadequate for the job. But I must confess to the fact that I am not a believer in the leadership-is-the-problem-of-Nigeria school of thought. Believing that leaders are not born but made by the environment or context in which they function, I am of the school that connectedness of goals and process or method can make an average person do well in government.

    Consequently, I believe that all the four presidents we have had since 1999 have been saddled with a governance structure that is inferior to the job at hand. Consequently, I believe that the 1999 Constitution is an albatross that needs to be removed in order to improve the qualities and standards of the field of governance in our multicultural federal democracy. Looking away from this important foundation while expecting angels in the most unlikely place—the seat of near-absolute national or subnational power—seems unrealistic or denialist.

    The history of the making of constitutions in the country shows a decline in the role of citizens in the making of the basic laws that determine their relevance in the polity. The constitutions that culminated in the Independence Constitution were made with direct and indirect participation by citizens. Each of the pre-1960 constitution heard from citizens through representatives that they sent to conferences at which choices were made about the type of constitution they would prefer. Of course, at each level, the colonial master also had a role to play in what type of constitution Nigeria got between 1946 and 1960.

    But the short-lived 1963 Constitution was negotiated by representatives of citizens under the government of Tafawa Balewa,  before it was suspended between 1966 and 1979 by the military dictators that came on the political landscape—from Gowon to Murtala and finally to Obasanjo, the most important author of the 1979 Constitution. It is necessary to remind ourselves that the committee that produced the first draft of the 1979 Constitution under the chairmanship of Rotimi Williams did not recommend a presidential system of government. It was the Supreme Military Council under Obasanjo that changed the focus of the draft from parliamentary to presidential system. Even though the 1979 document was suspended from 1984 to 1999 by successions of military rulers from Buhari to Babangida and Abacha, it re-surfaced in the 1999 Constitution that was produced in camera and unearthed after the election of the first post-military civil government in 1999.

    The little input from citizens directly or indirectly in the 1979 Constitution was given no chance by the authors of the 1999 Constitution. In 1999, citizens were not given an opportunity to show their views or assessments of the 1979 Constitution in relation to citizens’ sovereignty beyond the right to vote. Authors of the 1999 Constitution ignored the history of the struggle for de-militarization of the Nigerian polity by creating a constitution that ignores all of the issues that led to the struggle—the call for a constitution negotiated by free citizens and that is capable to respond to the country’s cultural diversity, especially a Basic Law document that can respond to the special needs of a multiethnic and multicultural democracy.

    To be continued.

  • Why Mercy thinks Tacha is a low budget CeeC

    With less than two weeks left till the end of Big Brother Naija, the stakes are higher than ever and housemates are definitely feeling the pressure as we’ve seen in the latest episode of Extra View on Showmax.

    Earlier in the week, housemates were tasked with leaving their mark in the house by painting their unique individual graffiti on the wall. As part of his graffiti, Omashola chose to paint his fellow housemates. However, Tacha wasn’t pleased by this and proceeded to clean off her image after Big Brother’s ninjas led Omashola and Mike away from the house for a Showmax movie treat.

    While Omashola wasn’t happy about Tacha’s move, Mercy found her actions wanting and shared her thoughts with her love interest, Ike. Describing Tacha’s actions as unnecessary, Mercy revealed that the move “weighed Omashola down a lot”.

    Ike, however, suggested that Tacha’s actions sprung from the fact that the show was coming to an end “and she wants to be CeeC”.

    “He [Omashola] told me he’s angry but he already knows that she’s doing this thing because we’re reaching the end and she wants to be CeeC.”

    Fans of Big Brother Naija will recall that CeeC, who was the second runner up of the Double Wahala set, had several heated run-ins with her fellow housemates, which led fans to dub her ‘the real double wahala’, in keeping with the season’s theme.

    Agreeing with Ike, Mercy shared that she was glad Omashola didn’t give Tacha the attention she seemingly sought, and went on to describe her as a low-budget version of the ex-Big Brother Naija housemate. “She can’t be CeeC; she no even hard. She’s forming to be hard, but that is how CeeC is. This one [Tacha] is a wannabe, low-budget CeeC.”

    With less than two weeks left till the end of Big Brother Naija, the stakes are higher than ever and housemates are definitely feeling the pressure as we’ve seen in the latest episode of Extra View on Showmax.

    Earlier in the week, housemates were tasked with leaving their mark in the house by painting their unique individual graffiti on the wall. As part of his graffiti, Omashola chose to paint his fellow housemates. However, Tacha wasn’t pleased by this and proceeded to clean off her image after Big Brother’s ninjas led Omashola and Mike away from the house for a Showmax movie treat.

    While Omashola wasn’t happy about Tacha’s move, Mercy found her actions wanting and shared her thoughts with her love interest, Ike. Describing Tacha’s actions as unnecessary, Mercy revealed that the move “weighed Omashola down a lot”.

    Ike, however, suggested that Tacha’s actions sprung from the fact that the show was coming to an end “and she wants to be CeeC”.

    “He [Omashola] told me he’s angry but he already knows that she’s doing this thing because we’re reaching the end and she wants to be CeeC.”

    Fans of Big Brother Naija will recall that CeeC, who was the second runner up of the Double Wahala set, had several heated run-ins with her fellow housemates, which led fans to dub her ‘the real double wahala’, in keeping with the season’s theme.

    Agreeing with Ike, Mercy shared that she was glad Omashola didn’t give Tacha the attention she seemingly sought, and went on to describe her as a low-budget version of the ex-Big Brother Naija housemate. “She can’t be CeeC; she no even hard. She’s forming to be hard, but that is how CeeC is. This one [Tacha] is a wannabe, low-budget CeeC.”

    With less than two weeks left till the end of Big Brother Naija, the stakes are higher than ever and housemates are definitely feeling the pressure as we’ve seen in the latest episode of Extra View on Showmax.

    Earlier in the week, housemates were tasked with leaving their mark in the house by painting their unique individual graffiti on the wall. As part of his graffiti, Omashola chose to paint his fellow housemates. However, Tacha wasn’t pleased by this and proceeded to clean off her image after Big Brother’s ninjas led Omashola and Mike away from the house for a Showmax movie treat.

    While Omashola wasn’t happy about Tacha’s move, Mercy found her actions wanting and shared her thoughts with her love interest, Ike. Describing Tacha’s actions as unnecessary, Mercy revealed that the move “weighed Omashola down a lot”.

    Ike, however, suggested that Tacha’s actions sprung from the fact that the show was coming to an end “and she wants to be CeeC”.

    “He [Omashola] told me he’s angry but he already knows that she’s doing this thing because we’re reaching the end and she wants to be CeeC.”

    Fans of Big Brother Naija will recall that CeeC, who was the second runner up of the Double Wahala set, had several heated run-ins with her fellow housemates, which led fans to dub her ‘the real double wahala’, in keeping with the season’s theme.

    Agreeing with Ike, Mercy shared that she was glad Omashola didn’t give Tacha the attention she seemingly sought, and went on to describe her as a low-budget version of the ex-Big Brother Naija housemate. “She can’t be CeeC; she no even hard. She’s forming to be hard, but that is how CeeC is. This one [Tacha] is a wannabe, low-budget CeeC.”

  • Police arrest alleged killer of three family members in Kano

    The Kano State Police Command on Saturday confirmed the arrest of a 25-year-old man, Salisu Idris for allegedly setting a house ablaze, killing three occupants who were believed to be members of the same family.

    The incident occurred last Wednesday at Gayawa Tsohuwa village, Ungogo local government area of the state.

    Police Public Relations Officer of the command, DSP Abdullahi Haruna Kiyawa who confirmed the arrest said the victims included the father, the pregnant mother and their 2-year-old daughter.

    “On Wednesday around 3 am, we received a report of a strange fire incident from Gayawa Tsohuwa in Ungogo local government area which we promised to investigate.

    After the incidence, the command’s commissioner of police Ahmed lliyasu, raised all the tactical units, the area commander of the metro division and the DPO of Zango division and he gave them 24hours to produce the perpetrators of the heinous act they immediately swung into action.

    “Using our community policing strategies we were able to trace, track and arrest one person by name salisu Idris at mijinbir town, where he went to take cover at the local government area.

    Read Also: Hoodlums kill policeman, seven vigilantes in Niger

    We traced him and arrested him with severe burns he sustained in his body. We interrogated him and we found out that they were two that carried out the dastardly act and the other one is at large and very soon we’ll get him.

    Responding to inquiries from reporters the suspect, confessed that he had been hired on a promise of N200, 000 to carry out the act.

    Idris who was a mobile phone seller at Farm Centre said he wanted to use the money to enrol into the Yusuf Maitama Sule University Kano.

    “A friend of mine asked me to accompany him to the house. He asked me to come along with him that at the end of the operation he will give me N200, 000. We came around 2 pm. And when we came we both climbed unto the building with petrol and immediately the fire was ignited I got caught up and burnt my hands and legs” he confessed.

    He said on getting home, overwhelmed with pains from burnt injuries he lied to his grandfather that he sustained the injuries in a fire incident at mai shayi joint.

    Idris said he was taken to a clinic in the community from where he was referred to the hospital at Minjibir from where he was traced and arrested by the police.

  • Kogi poll: SDP candidate rejects disqualification

    The Natasha Akpoti Campaign Organization has condemned and rejected the recent purported disqualification of the governorship candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Barr. Natasha Akpoti​​, on the grounds of the age of her running mate.

    In a press statement issued on Saturday by the Spokesman, Natasha Akpoti Campaign Organization, Mr. Odaudu Minister, he said this decision is inconsistent with INEC allowing gubernatorial candidates/running mates of same age with or even younger than hers in several political parties in states across the country to contest in the 2019 general elections.

    “A country’s polity is as strong and efficient as the electoral body that guides it. When the electoral body becomes a tool available to the use of politicians determined to foist their corrupt, inefficient, selfish and detrimental style of leadership on the suffering citizens, then it is unfortunate and the people must speak up and demand for fairness and justice”, the statement said.

    Read Also: Ekiti APC suspends LG primary elections indefinitely

    “To all our friends, supporters, and members of our campaign organization, Barr. Natasha Akpoti once again expresses her deep felt appreciation of your steadfastness. Your support, loyalty and desire for a better Kogi is what drives her”.

    “We will fight this great injustice by INEC. We will conquer this challenge as usual and proceed with our plan to liberate Kogi state from poverty and ineffectual leadership,” the statement added.

  • Teacher faces trial for forcing pupils to take off trousers

    Egypt’s chief prosecutor on Saturday ordered a criminal trial for a university teacher who allegedly forced his students to take off their trousers in order to pass an exam, private newspaper al-Masry Al Youm reported.

    The teacher, an assistant professor at Al-Azhar University, a state-run institution affiliated with Sunni Islam’s key centre of learning, al-Azhar, will face trial at the criminal court on charges of dishonouring a number of students and abusing his authority, the newspaper said.

    No specific date has been set for the trial.

    Earlier this year, a video showing the academic promising at a lecture to reward male students who remove their trousers with marks in the exam went viral.

    The footage purportedly showed at least two students accepting the offer amid cheers from some colleagues.

    Read Also; Obaseki is NUT’s best governor

    The video triggered an outcry in the conservative country and prompted Al-Azhar University to sack the teacher in April.

    The university called it an “immoral act and a crime.”

    At the time, the academic, who teaches Islamic creed and philosophy, reportedly apologised for the act, saying it was meant as a test for students on his lectures about ethics.

    Al-Azhar University, which admits Muslim students only, follows a gender segregation policy.

  • 1,000 ghost workers exposed in Niger

    Over 1000 ghost workers have been exposed in Niger state following the verification conducted by a committee set up by the Niger State Government.

    Some of the civil servants in the state were also discovered to be collecting double salaries while further investigations showed whose names appear in the payment vouchers but are not in the nominal roll of the state government.

    The Chairman of the Chairman of the Committee on Civil Servants Salary Management and Verification, Engineer Ibrahim Mohammed Panti divulged this to newsmen after the submission of the Committee’s report to the state government.

    According to him, a lot of discrepancies and malpractices have been discovered in the payment of salaries while the committee is saving the government more than N100 million with the recent findings.

    “The discrepancies discovered in the course of the committee’s work include duplication of Bank verification number (BVN), multiple bank accounts number of some staff, duplication of civil servant control and identification numbers as well as some staff names appearing in payment vouchers but could not be found in the nominal roll with office of the Head of Service.

    Read Also: Immigration intercepts two Niger nationals with weapons at Katsina border

    “The state’s staff strength of over 27,000 people have so far been reduced to about 26,000 while some few ghost workers have also been discovered by the committee.”

    Panti stated that only 42 out of the 95 Ministries, Departments and Agencies submitted their staff list adding that the committee has decided on the discipline to give to the MDAs as a consequence of their refusal to submit their staff list.

    “The committee will not pay October salary to any of the MDAs that refuse to submit theirs on or before 2nd October.”

    He emphasized that the exercise was to close the leakages in salary payment to civil servants and not to witch-hunt anyone, adding that anyone who feels aggrieved or affected by the exercise negatively is free to approach the committee.

    The Committee Chairman further said that after the exercise is done, the State Government might be in a position to implement the N30,000 new minimum wage.

  • Ikpeazu sacks ASEPA GM over poor sanitation in Umuahia

    Abia State Governor, Dr Okezie Ikpeazu, has directed the immediate sack of the General Manager of Abia State Environmental Sanitation Agency (ASEPA), Mr Okechukwu Apugo.

    A release by the Commissioner of Information, Chief John Okiyi said that Apugo was sacked over poor sanitation situation in Umuahia, the State capital.

    According to Kalu, the Governor gave the directive while on project tour in the state after passing through Ochendo by pass road and saw heaps of refuse along littered along the road.

    The information commissioner stated that the Governor Ikpeazu also directed the Secretary to State Government, Barr Chris Ezem, to take over sanitation in Umuahia with Dr Aham Uko assisting him.

    Ikpeazu has said that he would in the next four weeks, personally coordinates and supervises evacuation and disposal of refuse within the Aba metropolis.

    This is even as Ikpeazu has equally declared a State of Emergency on Environmental Sanitation in the state.

    The decision of the Governor to take over waste management activities in the state for four weeks was in response to the increasing challenges of waste management in some parts of the State (which seems to have proven overwhelming for the managers) including Aba, the commercial nerve of the state where the state generates tons of domestic and industrial waste daily.

    The Press secretary to Governor Okezie Ikpeazu, Onyebuchi Ememanka in a release also hinted that the Governor who happed on the need for a cleaner, hygienic and healthier environment would be signing an Executive Order in the next couple of days where distinct Waste Management Authorities would be created to manage waste in the major metropolitan Local Government Areas in the state.

    Read Also: Kogi poll: SDP candidate rejects disqualification

    “The Governor of Abia State, Okezie Ikpeazu, Ph.D. has declared a State of Emergency on Environmental Sanitation in response to the increasing challenges of waste management in some parts of the State.

    Consequently, the Governor will, in a matter of days, sign an Executive Order to create distinct Waste Management Authorities in the following Metropolitan Local Government Areas of the State – Aba North, Aba South, Osisioma Ngwa, Obingwa, Ugwunagbo, Umuahia South and Umuahia North Local Government Waste Managers shall be appointed immediately to superintendent over these Waste Management Authorities in the specified Local Government Areas.

    Effective from today, Friday, 27th September 2019, the Governor shall, for four weeks, PERSONALLY take over and coordinate Waste Management activities in the entire Aba Metropolis to restore sanity and discipline in the entire Waste Management System within the emergency period.”

    It could be recalled that Ikpeazu had within the week handed over two refuse compactor trucks to ASEPA to help them in the management of wastes in the state, an action that has received commendations from Aba residents.